I shall not attempt to give more than the briefest summary of the founding of the Society, for the story has already been ably told by someone with first-hand knowledge, namely, A. D. Bowers, Emeritus Member, Extraordinary, of the Society, whose account appears in the June 1959 issue of the Journal. It is not clear whether the originator of the idea of the Society's foundation was Edward Jenks, then Principal and Director of Legal Studies to The Law Society and later first holder of the Chair of English Law at the London School of Economics, or Henry Goudy, Regius Professor of the University of Oxford. What is clear, however, is that Jenks was the one who really got things moving. Indeed in the early days the Society was apparently sometimes referred to as ‘Jenks’ Trade Union’, to Jenks’ disgust.

‘Today, therefore, the controlling factor in determining whether the exercise of a prerogative power is subject to judicial review is not its source but its subject matter.’ So uttered Lord Scarman, expressing the view of the majority of the House of Lords in Council of Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service (the GCHQ case). The Attorney General, in deciding whether to institute proceedings for the enforcement ofa public right, exercises a power vested in him by virtue of the royal prerogative. This power, it was previously held, was ‘absolute and non-reviewable’. The question now arises as to whether the Attorney General’s discretionary powers are embraced within that category of prerogative powers whose subject matter renders them amenable to judicial review, or whether they remain beyond judicial scrutiny.

Experimentalism is a theory of regulation in which change is achieved via a process of ‘directly deliberative polyarchy’ within an experimentalist architecture. This paper argues that experimentalism offers a normatively desirable model for legal interventions relating to the ageing workforce, and age equality law in particular, and offers new insights into existing UK scholarship on reflexive law. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data from UK universities, this article considers the extent to which reforms to retirement ages have promoted a form of experimentalism among UK universities. This paper offers concrete suggestions and reforms for how an experimentalist framework could be adopted in this context to enhance regulatory reform.

In this paper, we argue that clients who purchase commercial sex from victims of forced prostitution should be strictly liable in torts towards the victims. Such an approach is both normatively defensible and doctrinally feasible. Fairness and equality demand that clients would compensate victims, even if one refuses to acknowledge that purchasing sex from a prostitute who might be a victim is a faulty behaviour. Clients profit from the activity of purchasing commercial sex, so fairness demands they will bear the costs they impose on victims who are unable to refuse the contact. Strict liability will bring about desirable distributive results along the lines of sex, class and race. Imposing strict liability will ensure consistency of the English law of trespass and it is supported by several instrumental considerations.

Such strict liability could be grounded in battery, despite the appearance of apparent consent by the victim to sell sexual services to the client. This is so for two main reasons. First, the extreme coercion operated on the victim renders her consent void so that an innocent third party cannot rely on the appearance of consent. Secondly, the client should be considered as having constructive notice with respect to the trafficker's coercion. Our argument is supported by – but does not hinge upon accepting – the insight that the client's behaviour is ultimately faulty.

The English jury has recently been undergoing various alterations. These changes have their roots in assumptions, often not clearly identified, about the nature and purpose of the jury within the criminal justice system. Once the purpose and ideals of the jury system are identified, and there may be arguments about what they are, it becomes apparent that there may be a conflict about how they should be put into practice. The state and its agencies may take one view whilst others may differ. An example of one such conflict is the controversy over the newly discovered practice of ‘jury vetting’.

In both the United Kingdom and the United States, there have been a substantial number of copyright disputes concerning the creation of biographical works. Prominent recent examples have involved J D Salinger and Sir Stephen Spender. In many such disputes, the claimant's motive for bringing infringement proceedings is not financial but ‘personal’— for example, to protect privacy or reputation. In this article, it is argued that, when copyright is employed for such motives, inconsistent results can arise. In particular, in such cases, it is demonstrated that the possession of a copyright interest is capable of providing a number of apparently inequitable advantages to claimants whose privacy or reputation is threatened.

The law of goods remains in a relatively undeveloped state, retaining both a vocabulary and doctrines which derive from the late Year Book period. That vocabulary is expressed in terms of general and special property in goods. The ‘property’ in goods was always regarded as indivisible because there could be no estate in goods. That doctrine survives in the modern rule that ownership of goods is indivisible. The difficulty of reconciling the old language with modern usage is conventionally overcome by assuming that the old terms simply correspond with ownership and possession. It will be argued in this paper that no such correspondence exists because general and special property always represent an aspect of ownership. In order to demonstrate this assertion it is necessary to depart from orthodox doctrine and insist that ownership is severable. This will be illustrated by the way in which proprietary interests behave upon the creation of a pledge and a hiring of goods.

The reply of Professor Williams to our article ‘Recklessness: the House of Lords and the criminal law’ is interesting and vigorous. We continue, however, to adhere to our original view, and attempt below to summarise our objections to what appear to be his main arguments on the law. On the moral issue, we do not consider that Professor Williams has answered the arguments for ‘Caldwell - recklessness’ put forward by Duff. We find the Professor's philosophical position somewhat confusing. Why is it acceptable to convict those who fail to appreciate an obvious risk because of ‘blind rage’ or self-iduced intoxication, but not those whose failure to appreciate it arises from total indifference to the well-being of others?

We should like to make the following points in reply to those charges against us which seem the gravest.

Members of the senior judiciary have expressed concern about the ‘over-judicialisation’ of welfare in the context of homelessness decision-making and adjudication. This paper examines how those fears have been manifested and makes a link with the concept of proportionate dispute resolution (PDR). It argues that the statutory scheme incorporates elements of PDR and judges should therefore refrain from introducing additional layers. The courts’ denial of the application of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights to the homelessness context is disputed, and the paper makes the case for continuing rigorous judicial oversight of front-line decision-making, recommending that attention is focused on assessing procedural safeguards rather than disputing the ambit of Article 6.

The Statement of Standards for University Law Library Provision is a comprehensive and flexible set of standards providing authoritative guidance for law schools and law librarians. It represents a broad and authoritative consensus of views. The Standards were originally drawn up by a consultative group established by the Libraries Sub-Committee of the Society of Legal Scholars in 1995 and approved by the Society after consultation with academic, professional and governmental bodies. They have now been comprehensively revised by a working party of the Libraries Sub-Committee, after extensive consultation, and this revision was adopted by the Council of the Society on 9 September 2009. The Standards themselves are expressed briefly and are designed to be of general application to libraries serving an increasingly diverse range of law schools and law school activities. They are applicable to the academic stage of legal education only (undergraduate and postgraduate), delivered through all modes of study, and are supported by a more detailed commentary.

The tendency of lawyers these days is to deny much of a place to Roman Law and this is reflected not only in a widely held view that since the eighteenth century legal innovation has been so great as to have left the Corpus Juris Civilis a ‘mere antiquarianism’: it is also reflected in the fact that fewer and fewer law schools in the West insist on Roman law as a compulsory subject. Indeed, the number of law faculties or departments in England offering the subject as even an optional course can probably now be counted on the fingers of, if not one hand, then two.

One of the most controversial aspects of the assessment of damages for breach of contract is the extent to which there can be recovery for ‘intangible’ losses such as disappointment and inconvenience. In Watts v Morrow, Bingham LJ assumed that public policy generally proscribed contractual liability for such losses, unless the object of the contract was to provide pleasure and/or peace of mind, or the breach caused foreseeable physical inconvenience to the victim. Unfortunately, Watts, and its associated case-law, offered scant guidance on the underlying rationale for either the general rule or its two exceptions. Consequently, more recent judicial pronouncements on this issue, particularly from the House of Lords, are to be welcomed insofar as they demonstrate a greater preparedness to eschew the use of arbitrary policy constraints in favour of focusing upon a claimant’s expected benefits as contained within the contract. In so doing, disappointment and inconvenience appear to be subject to the same rules of recovery. This paper will seek to justify and encourage this trend, arguing that a logical application of the principles contained within Hadley v Baxendale and Robinson v Harman dispenses with any need to use ‘policy’ as a means of limiting the recovery of damages for disappointment and inconvenience, more properly takes account of a claimant’s known preferences, and ensures that all forms of inconvenience and disappointment are subject to the same rules; in short, that damages properly reflect the full range of the claimant’s expectation deficit.

The problems associated with pre-incorporation contracts are due to the essentially artificial nature of a company’s existence and personality. The existence of a company, unlike that of a natural person, is not something which can be readily ascertained but is a matter of legal formality. There is a good case for treating pre-incorporation contracts as sui generis, but until 1973 their legal effect was governed by common law principles of contract and agency which drew little distinction between companies and natural persons. The result was unsatisfactory and widely criticised, one commentator remarking that ‘it is rare to hear such a widespread and common opposition against any aspect of English company law’. Section 9(2) of the European Communities Act 1972 (now to be found in s 36C of the Companies Act 1985) made a partial reform of this law, but did not deal with the inability of a newly formed company to ratify or adopt a pre-incorporation contract made on its behalfeven though this was a major deficiency of the common law.

This paper argues that adverse publicity can fulfil two crucial roles in consumer protection law and policy. First, it can operate as an effective regulatory sanction in its own right; secondly it can play a vital role in helping consumers to exert market discipline by making informed choices about suppliers. However, there are significant risks to using adverse publicity to achieve these ends and it is imperative that any regulatory regime addresses these. Studying this topic now is particularly important for three main reasons. First, there has been widespread recognition that the regulatory offence, typically backed up with fines, is not the most effective form of sanction. More flexible, targeted and responsive options are required. Secondly, there is now ample evidence that regulated information, for example in the form of mandatory disclosure, frequently fails to help consumers to make fully informed choices. Finally, there are some highly significant very recent examples of enforcers using publicity in ways that can be viewed both as a sanction and as an information tool. The need to sanction responsively and to bolster consumer sovereignty demonstrates the potential for adverse publicity as a tool of consumer protection policy.